Open Register

Organic lawn care gains appeal

Growing interest in organics is changing the way consumers look at lawn care, according to a report in The Boston Globe. Mahoney’s Garden Centers, 50-year-old garden center chain, recently joined the Safe Lawns franchise system to provide organic lawn care services in Winchester, Woburn, and Tewksbury, Mass. The goal is to help homeowners slowly improve their lawn, making it denser and healthier. “It’s a gradual improvement,” Peter Mahoney said. “It’s about developing a thick lawn, because in a thick lawn you’re not going to have the weeds, pests, and diseases.”

-- Sarah

Grocery bags deliver heartfelt Earth Day message

Sickles Market, a gourmet grocery and garden retailer in Little Silver, N.J., has teamed up with a local elementary school to deliver Earth Day messages to customers.

Owner Bob Sickles donated more than 400 paper bags to the school, which the students decorated incorporating an environmental message. On Earth Day, Thursday, April 22, these decorated sacks will be used to bag groceries at Sickles Market.

The effort is part of the 16th international annual Earth Day Groceries Project. This nonprofit, grassroots effort started in 1994, with 43 schools participating in the decoration and distribution of 13,000 Earth Day grocery bags. Over the years this has grown to hundreds of thousands of bags being handed out across the globe.

-- Sarah

Consumer attitudes on organics reported in winter survey

News from the organics front, courtesy of Garden Writers Association Foundation:

Not too long ago, organic gardening was just beginning to attract public attention. Its dedicated followers represented an estimated 8%-10% of the lawn & garden market -- far from the mainstream of gardening products and activities. Even when the organic foods industry began gaining public attention and support, organic gardening maintained a small, but vocal, presence in the background until recent years. As environmental, economic, social and other issues change public attitudes on a variety of topics, the organic gardening movement has grown.

As part of its ongoing efforts to identify gardening issues and story opportunities for gardening communicators, the GWA Foundation conducted a national consumer survey to determine current attitudes on organic gardening and organic gardening products. Here is a brief summary of the survey results:

• Generally speaking, consumers equate the term "organic" as having some real meaning or value; however, 70% equate it with being "costly to buy."

• About one quarter (26%) of consumers think that "natural" products are not as good as organic products. One in five consumers (18%) think natural products are the same as organic products, while 5% believe that natural products are better than organic products.

• Most (80%) consumers say they would use more organic products if they knew that they could get an effective result for no additional cost.

• Sixty percent (60%) say that they would use more organic products if they could be convinced that organics are just as effective as non-organic products.

• A sizable number of consumers (55%) say that they would like to use organic products more if they could simply find them in a store. A similar number (53%) say that they would use more organic products if they understood what to buy and how to use it.

Overall, topics that have the highest level of interest for consumers (that is, topics rated as either "very high" or "high") are those that involve buying organic products in stores and those that involve growing their own organic products.

• Buying organic products in stores (44%)

• Growing your own organic products (36%)
• Doing organic lawn care (31%)
• Growing non-edible organic flowers and shrubs (29%)

New standards rate “greenness” of the garden

A recent article in The New York Times talks about the Sustainable Sites Initiative and its quest to formulate sustainability standards for landscapes. A 179-page report produced by the group includes a point system for rating a landscape, much like the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System, which rates the sustainability of buildings.

-- Sarah

Is a local economy more secure?

The small Vermont town of Hardwick is banking its future on growing and cultivating food products sustainably, according to a New York Times article. Until recently, Hardwick had followed the path of many small communities that aren’t satellites to large cities. The main employers, granite companies, shut down years ago, then the bars and X-rated theaters that sprung up in its wake faded away.

Today, Hardwick’s citizens collaborate to help each other start up companies based on local farming, and it’s working. So far, about 100 jobs have been created.

A soy company that uses beans from local farms has grown from five clients to 350. Another company that ages cheese handles not only its own products, but ages cheese for other enterprises as well. Add to these two companies other small, local-based enterprises for organic seeds, support-equipment suppliers, and you have a mini-economy that’s flourishing.

The leaders in the effort have formed a non-profit enterprise to encourage other agriculture businesses in the area and expect to help 15 to 20 entrepreneurs next year.

With our economy as shaky as it is, Hardwick strikes me as a town that is embracing a more secure, old-fashioned, supply-and-demand economic foundation. And it sounds like one that many garden retailers can help create in their own communities.

I’ve come across such a venture before. Former Garden Center Magazine Innovator winner Bayview Farm & Gardens on Whidbey Island in Washington’s Puget Sound (that's a photo of owner Maureen Rowley under the store's arbor above) is part of a symbiotic gathering of businesses. Sited on a triangular piece of land called Bayview Corner, Bayview and its neighboring businesses, which include a small specialty grocery, an art gallery and a restaurant, collaborate on several levels. They host a regular farmers’ market, they hold coordinated events, and share parking and bathroom facilities. Beyond the business goals, the stores also encourage community life and gathering. A richer community life, the business owners feel, leads to more success in business.

Are there businesses near you that could form a Hardwick-like initiative to support the local economy? Garden centers already buy many supplies from local businesses, and are well positioned to lead this type of effort. How can you and fellow businesses reach beyond what you are already doing that will boost your local economy?

-- Carol

 

An accepted use of propanity

I’m not going to deny that the Green movement is still gaining momentum. Heck, I read a story the other day that said if every person painted his/her roof white, we would virtually eliminate global warming, what with all the reflected light and heat doing something magical to the environment. Candidly, the article was so technical that it gave me tired-head trying to figure out just why white is Green.

No matter, I still endorse/embrace products and services that help ensure that my kids’ world — and their kids’ world — will still have important things like air and water and outdoor baseball. To that end, I salute the folks at Lehr, who have crafted a line of tools that use clean propane instead of the other, less environmentally friendly fossil fuels.

Propane is a nontoxic, nonpoisonous gas that does not contaminate soil or water. It is already in use by millions of Americans every day in furnaces, water heaters, air conditioners, fireplaces, appliances and outdoor grills — and has long been recognized as “green” energy. And now it’s part of a line of tools that could come to be recognized as “the next big thing.”

Well, next to white roofs, of course. 

-- Yale

The art of sustaining sustainability

About two years ago, when the “Big G” Green movement started to shift from fancy-tickler to bona fide trend, I predicted that the “little g” green industry would be not only be a beneficiary but a leader of a national cultural shift that makes Ma Earth’s health a major priority.

I also said that practically every business in our business would embrace the planet …

… until a clearly defined set of standards convinced many that paying green was a stiff price for being Green.

That’s why I read with interest the recent OFA report on the progress — or lack thereof — of a national Standards Committee intent on defining just what is and what isn’t sustainable. The committee’s focus is on agricultural practices, which are close kin to horticultural practices, meaning that ultimately the standards wrought yon will have an impact hither.

I’m guessing that anything with the word “committee” in the title is likely to produce a result that won’t please everyone — while taking a long time to reach that less-than-pleasing fruition.

I’m predicting that whatever happens in the proverbial smoke-filled room, only some of the companies that say they are “Green” now, will be, whenever.

At which point, a lot of us writing and speaking about the industry will have to find a new pet project on which to pontificate.

-- Yale

Ooh, that smells so earth-friendly …

So, you say, you sell green candles? Well, now you can also sell “green” candles.

Midwest of Cannon Falls has introduced Go Green by Colonial Candle, purportedly the first 100-percent recycled wax candle collection that is produced in a recognized “green” facility.

The Go Green collection also features recycled glass containers as part of the mix, which includes four nature-inspired fragrances:

• Rain — featuring fragrance notes of green, water, flower, fruit, musk and amber.
• Bamboo — featuring fragrance notes of green tea, lime, cassis, verbena, bamboo and woods.
• Clean — featuring fragrance notes of crisp florals, fruit and amber.
• Fresh — featuring fragrance notes of water, citrus, florals and sandalwood.

Given that I received news of aforementioned candles via a press release and not through a product sample, I can’t personally vouch for all of those fragrance notes. Heck, I can’t even vouch for what a fragrance note is. But I do suspect that all these pro-environment candle products smell swell.

-- Yale

Conversation continues about green-industry campaign

Industry leaders met last month to discuss the need for a national marketing campaign promoting the green industry. (Read more about the meeting here and here.) One summit participant, Steve Cissel, founder of 10-20 Media, proposed a campaign focusing on an “oxygen footprint,” the antithesis of the “carbon footprint” consumers hear so much about.

Cissel has posted information about the concept at www.oxygenfootprint.org. He has also launched an online forum to spur further discussion about the campaign.

-- Sarah

Gardeners take issue with un-recyclable pots

Plastic horticulture waste has got some gardeners hacked off, the Chicago Tribune reported. Pots, flats and trays not coded for recycling are leading to frustration among customers. The story outlines some steps large growers and retailers are taking to cut down on plastic entering landfills.

-- Sarah